Stars by Mary Lyn Ray

Cooking Skill Level: SUPER EASY

This is one of the first books we cooked.  There was nothing amazingly special about the menu, it was all about the book.  This is a beautiful book.  The potential stars, real stars, things that are star-shaped, even cut out stars.  It’s just a wonderful book, as in filled with wonder.  It really struck a chord with the boys, so much so that I had to cut out stars (and write a teeny note from Grummy on each one) and put them in the world’s smallest jeans pockets.  I understand that only one of the three got washed with the jeans.  The resultant spitball was found the next time he wore the jeans, so all is well.  The other two have torn and ragged starlike shapes on their bookshelves. 

The menu was so simple for this meal.  For the sandwiches, I used my largest star cookie cutter and cut cheese slices, cold cuts, lettuce and bread all the same size. I put 2 bread stars on each plate, and a bunch of the cheese, lettuce and cold cuts so that the boys could assemble their own sandwiches. As always, this gives them incentive to actually eat the food.

 

Because I’m a savvy Grummy, I manned the condiment squirt bottles and “dressed” the sandwiches on request. Of course I made the boys repeat“Oh most wonderful Grummy, please may I have some [insert condiment name or color here]”. I do that just to hear the giggles in their voices.

 I used store-bought pasta in star shapes (Stellini and Pastini) to make a quick pasta salad.  These are pretty easy to find.  If you can’t find them, you could always use the cooked lasagna noodle or fresh pasta recipe and cut out the smallest stars you can find.

I like to toss my diced carrots and my peas into the boiling pasta water just a minute before the pasta is done to give them a tiny bit of tenderness.  I think it also helps them absorb some of the dressing.  The dressing itself is just a quarter cup of buttermilk, a quarter cup of plain yogurt, lots of dried or finely chopped fresh herbs (parsley, dill, chive, basil, tarragon, etc.), some salt and some pepper.  I just drain the pasta and toss it all together with the dressing.  Then I chill it for at least a half an hour.  Remember when cooking Stellini and Pastini, they’re so small, they cook really fast, so you want to be careful to avoid a bowl of mush, it’s better undercooked.

 

 

For dessert, we had fruit (pears) cut into star shapes and the “voids”, the area that’s left after you cut out a star.  That’s so you can look through it and get the point of view of the star (according to the eldest, this is how a star sees, Grummy).

 

Again, we cleaned up after dinner, and read the book again.  This was at the request of the youngest one.  The other two actually sat still through a second reading, even pointing out the same things I’d pointed out during our first reading. 

I love doing this.

Title	Stars
Author	Mary Lyn Ray
Illustrator	Marla Frazee
Publisher	Beach Lane Books, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division
Highlights /Tie in	Stars
Reactions to the Book	·         The boys liked the way the illustrator placed “surprise” stars throughout ·         Grummy Note: this is a really beautiful story.  All of the boys were intrigued with the idea of keeping a paper star in their pocket for when they couldn’t see the real ones.
Meal	·         Pasta Salad: Stellini/Pastini (small star pasta used in soups, 2 sizes) with peas and diced carrots with buttermilk dressing ·         Star Sandwiches: Bread, cold cuts, cheese, lettuce all cut with same sized star cookie cutters ·         Dessert: Fruits (melon, nectarine, etc) cut using small star cookie cutter (use both the star and the “void” in the slice of fruit)
Reactions to the Meal	·         Boys loved the pasta salad, tried eating it one teeny star at a time ·         Sandwiches were a huge hit, each one was able to make the sandwich of their choice ·         Middle one tried two stars of cheese with one star of bread in the middle

 

Keep checking, I'll be doing another tips and tricks posting.

La Luna by Enrico Casarosa

                                                             

Cooking Skill Level: EASY INTERMEDIATE

I'm finally getting the books and menus organized, so I'll be able to post the stories we've already eaten fairly quickly. For some of them, I was too busy to take pictures of the food preparation so I'll remake some of the menus and photograph those so you can see just how I've done it.

This time, the story is La Luna, a beautiful story about a boy, his father and his grandfather. This is the boy's first time tending to the family business, scattering the stars that are stuck to the moon.

The tie between the menu and the story is really the moon and stars. I've added some brooms to allow the boys to re-enact the story. I made ravioli, great big full moon round ravioli, and filled it with stars and cheese. I scattered some ham and kale stars and shooting star tails on the plate, put a couple of the moons in with those stars and topped it with an easy Alfredo sauce.

Let’s start with the ravioli. First, I used my favorite pasta recipe (2+ cups flour, 3 eggs, and 1 tsp salt – this time, I added some parsley so the moons would be slightly green) to make the dough. I mixed all of the ingredients and rolled it into a ball, stuck it in a plastic bag and let it sit while I made the stuffing.

So, using my mandolin because it’s an easy and quick way to make thin slices (you can use a knife if you don’t have a mandolin), I sliced the sweet potatoes, yellow squash and the carrots.  Then, I started cutting star shapes out of the sweet potato, discovering that sweet potatoes are far tougher than my fingers.

TIP: Blanch your sweet potato slices before you try to cut shapes out of them.

 

I found some very small cutters at a craft store which are actually used to make shapes for scrapbooking. Since even my smallest star cookie cutter was too big, these proved to be just what I needed. They came in themed packs, which I only noticed once I got them home. I guess I was so focused on the fact that there were two different star shapes that I didn’t even notice the baby bottle and carriage shapes. I guess the next person I know who has a baby shower will get some special ravioli. 

 

Once I had my blanched carrots and sweet potatoes and my yellow squash cut into stars, I added some shredded cheddar, salt, pepper, fresh grated nutmeg and cottage cheese.

 

Next, I rolled out my pasta using a rolling pin, and cut an even number of circles using my largest biscuit cutter. I brushed one half of the circles (one half of the total number of circles, not semi-circles) with egg wash and put a heaping spoonful of stars on them. I then topped them with another circle of dough and crimped the edges to seal.

 

 

While I boiled water to cook the ravioli moons, I worked on the ham and kale. You could use any thinly sliced meat here; turkey, chicken, beef, pork. It just so happens I had some left oversliced ham. I layered the ham slices and the kale so that as I cut the stars out, the ham wouldn’t stick together. I would love to say that I cut all of this into stars, but my hands got tired, so we ended up with stars and the shooting star tails. The two younger boys just said “ooohh” and nodded. The eldest said,“Grummy. You know there aren’t shooting stars in the story.” BUSTED.

 

I also started up a quick Alfredo sauce. 1 cup of half and half, a handful of grated pecorino romano cheese. I didn’t add garlic since I wasn’t sure it would go well with the nutmeg in the ravioli.

 While all of that was cooking, I showed the boys how to make brooms out of string cheese. Just peel the cheese ¼ of the way up the stick. We had to make a few extra.

 

 

The boys loved biting into the ravioli and having the stars and cheese goo pour out. It was so fun seeing their faces! They ate it all, even the kale (but then who wouldn’t eat anything drenched in creamy sauce?). They tried banging their forks onto the plates to make a Ping sound (read the book, you'll understand) until I told them I didn't want my plates broken.  Afterward, we had some fruit slices and cut with my star cookie cutters and star shaped sugar cookies – I make cookies for my dad and always make extra to have on hand for the boys. I just make sure to use a lot of different shapes.

TIP: if you're not up to making your own ravioli, just look in the freezer aisle for round ravioli, these are usually cheese ravioli. Then, make up your alfredo and put some star shaped vegetables in the sauce. Trust me, this is still a fun dinner!

Title	La Luna
Author	Enrico Casarosa
Illustrator
Publisher	Disney Press
Highlights /Tie in	Full Moon, Crescent Moon, Stars
Reactions to the Book	The boys loved seeing the boy, his father and his grandpa. They borrowed my brooms and went sweeping for stars.
Meal	Full moon (round) ravioli stuffed with stars cut from carrots and sweet potatoes, with a bit of beschamel  Ham stars (cut from thin deli-sliced ham) sprinkled across the plate (tip: layer ham with chard/spinach/kale – stack as high as you want, then cut with cookie cutter … ham layers will not stick together) String Cheese Brooms Star shaped cookies and fruits
Reactions to the Meal	· When they cut into the ravioli, (the youngest just picked it up and took a bite), the stars and cheesy goo came pouring out.   All three of the boys used the string cheese brooms to sweep  the stars around their plates. The kale and ham stars became kale and ham shooting star tails (I got tired of cutting out stars), but they still loved them.

 I'll get back to photgraphing and writing up the rest of our story dinners and get some more posted as soon as possible.